This invention relates to improvements in fuel supply systems for internal combustion engines. More particularly, the improvements herein disclosed are directed to a novel means for producing and controlling heated water vapors, fuel vapors and combustion air for delivery to the intake manifold of an internal combustion engine.
The effect of adding water vapor to the fuel/air mixture under controlled conditions so as to generate increased power is not new. However, prior devices in general for this purpose have been unduly complex to construct and difficult to adjust and maintain in reliable operation. Moreover, excessive internal engine operating temperatures often attended the generation of increased output power, limiting the use of such prior methods to short-term operation, such as to achieve short bursts of acceleration of an aircraft or other vehicle. A further shortcoming believed to have been experienced heretofore applied to the problem of maintaining a fuel/water balance with combustion air suitable for sustained economical operation after engine warmup, following upon the establishment of a different balance needed for reliable starting and warm-up.
A broad object of the present invention is to overcome these limitations and difficulties with prior water-augmented fuel and air supply systems for internal combustion engines.
A further object hereof is to substantially improve the operating efficiency of internal combustion engines by a novel means for generating and combining heated water vapors and fuel vapors with heated mixing air in the engine fuel supply vaporizer means of the invention.
A further and more specific object is to devise such a fuel supply system wherein an optimum balance or ratio of the three infeed combustion components is inherently and consistently available for cold starting of the engine using simply a conventional starter motor to turn it over, and without necessity for any special starting carburetor, fuel injectors or other auxillary fuel supply apparatus. A related object is to provide such a means which not only provides the requisite starting balance of combustion components, but which maintains a suitable balance during warm-up and thereafter automatically becomes adjusted or may be adjusted by manual means so as to vary the balance ratio of the components for optimum operating economy and maximum power output availability after warm-up, but without overheating of the engine.
A specific object hereof, ancillary to the principal objectives, is to provide such a combustion mixture supply means altogether eliminating the need for a conventional carburetor or complex injector or vaporizer apparatus. More specifically, the invention achieves its objectives with the requirement for moving parts limited to any which serve to throttle or vary the passage of fuel/water vapors and leaning air through the engine and to the means, if any, for compensatively adjusting water/fuel level in the means for vaporizing these components in the presence of mixing air.
With this invention, total vaporization of water and fuel, and complete admixture thereof with a small (mixing) fraction of the combustion air occurs in a heated vaporizer, followed by further dispersal of the vaporous mixing air in the stream of leaning air also preheated before entering the engine intake manifold after engine warm-up. Spark timing may be set back so as to avoid engine overheating without loss of output power and at the same time fuel economy is maximized through automatic leaning of fuel supply (vapor generation) rate, and effective utilization of engine heat to extract energy from the concurrent conversion of water vapor into superheated steam during each combustion cycle.